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rules and regulations

Rules and regulations of BeVolunteer

Introduction

BeVolunteer is mainly defined by its official statutes. The rules and regulations clarify and further specify some points defined in the statutes as well as set some rules to enhance the management of the organization.

Given this dependency, any rules contradicting the statutes are invalid.

Reminder of the Article 7 of the Statutes: "Rules and regulations will be established by the Board of Directors (BoD) and approved by the General Assembly (GA) in order to define the method of execution of the present statutes. These regulations apply to all the members of the association." It means that the Board of Directors (BoD) can at any moment change these rules, which become effective after approval by GA.

Membership

This refers to Article 6 of the statutes: membership.

  • Membership of BeVolunteer is not required to be a BeWelcome volunteer.

Conditions

In order for a person to become a member of BeVolunteer, the following requirements must be met. The person must:

  • have been an active BeWelcome member for 6 months. For the first year of the project BeWelcome (from 02.04.2007 till 31.03.08), this condition is extended to a membership of 6 months of another hospitality exchange network.
  • have been an active volunteer of BeWelcome for at least 3 months. For the first year of the project BeWelcome (from 02.04.2007 till 31.03.08), this condition is extended to a volunteering period of 3 months in another hospitality exchange network.
  • be vouched for by a BeVolunteer member
  • agree to grant to BeVolunteer a right forever to use the work done for BeVolunteer during the membership of BeVolunteer. This covers work done for BeVolunteer and any and all projects of Bevolunteer, such as BeWelcome.
  • write an adequate application for membership and send it to the BeVolunteer board.
  • Accept the Statutes and the Rules and regulations.

The board will, upon receiving applications for membership, as per the Statutes, either approve it or reject it.

Approval/rejection of membership

After receiving an application, the board should during its first upcoming meeting decide on the issue of this application. In case the board confirms the application, it will send a welcoming message to the new member, otherwise a rejection message. In either case, the message should be sent before the next meeting of board

Member status

As per the statutes, members fall in two groups, active members and supportive/honorary members.

  • Active members: these are physical persons who have been accepted as members of BeVolunteer. The membership bestows upon them the following rights:
    • During the first three months: the member has the right to participate in the work and life of BeVolunteer (i.e. access to the site, access to the forum, vote on working polls on the forum, etc.). The member is not given the right to vote at a general assembly during this period, and neither can the member be elected to the board. Note that this does not exclude the member from participating in a general assembly.
    • During the following nine months: given that the member still qualifies as a BeVolunteer member (i.e. follows the spirit of the Statutes and the rules and regulations), they are then granted the right to vote at the GA as well as the right to be elected for Board of Directors (BoD). However, the member is not permitted to vote on topics related to article 10 of the present Statutes.
    • After the first 12 months of membership: given that the member still qualifies for membership, they are then given all rights defined in the Statutes and the rules and regulations.

At each of these transitions, the board can postpone the member's transition or cancel the membership, if the conditions for membership are not fulfilled anymore or if the member has been inactive.

NEW: Procedure with inactive 'active members'

In order to keep the members' database clean and to prevent a stalemate for the organization, there should not be too many 'active members' that are not taking part in the organization's projects, evolution and volunteer work. Inactivity shall be defined as no known volunteer activity for at least six months. To establish this, feedback from team coordinators, wiki and trac edits, OTRS Work and forum posts will be evaluated. The procedure that shall follow is:

  • send out a first letter to all inactive BV members:
    • ask them whether they would like to contribute more
    • show where and how (contact team coordinators)
    • explain to them that inactive members might cause an administrative problem quorum
    • inform them about the possibility to become supportive members (receiving this message does not mean that the member will be supportive member, just no answer will change their status until they want to become active again)
  • after a delay (two weeks)second letter: reactivating info will be sent again, but with a notification: "you will pass to supportive member status"
    • if there is no reaction the member will be automatically set to supportive members status
  • routine and message templates can be found here: http://www.bevolunteer.org/wiki/BV_members_activity

Rules pertaining to general assemblies

This refers to article 8 of the Statutes: ordinary General Assembly

  • At least 1 month in advance an invitation must be published by the Executive Delegate of the BoD that mentions location, time and indicative agenda of the assembly. It is up to the Board of Directors (BoD) to determine the most appropriate means of communication, but it must be adequate in terms of notifying the largest amount of members in due time. Possible means of communication are (but are not limited to): publishing the invitation on the BeVolunteer website/wiki, sending invitations by email, using instant messaging, etc.
  • The Board of Directors (BoD) defines the way the assembly is held. It may be done face-to-face or by virtual techniques (instant messaging / video conference etc.). In any case it must be ensured that all members get a fair chance to attend the meeting, and that members who have the right to vote are able to do so.
  • The Secretary Delegate is responsible for taking meeting minutes. These are validated by the coming board and published on the BeVolunteer website at the latest one month after the general assembly.
  • An identification process for managing the votes is defined by the Board of Directors (BoD) for each GA to ensure the best process in function of the organization.

Board of Directors

This refers to Articles 8.2 of the Statutes: board of directors

Number of members

  • The Board of Directors (BoD) has a minimum of three seats, and a maximum of 12 seats. Both numbers include the seats of the three delegates. The number of seats are equal to the number of elected candidates for the board, unless there are fewer than three or more than 12 elected.
  • For a candidate to be elected to the Board of Directors (BoD), he has to have votes from at least 10% of the members at the general assembly who are allowed to vote for the board.
  • Each member present at the general assembly, who is allowed to vote, is given a number of votes equal to the amounts of candidates running for board. The members choose themselves how many votes they will cast, however, they are only allowed to vote once for each candidate (hence, even if you have 10 votes, you are only allowed to use one of those per candidate).
  • Election for Board of Directors (BoD) is held using a single ballot displaying the list of candidates and a box next to each name. Ticking or crossing the box signifies casting a vote for the candidate.

Rules of organising board meetings

  • BeVolunteer BoD are held on a weekly basis on a Fixed Day to be determined by the BoD. At the moment the BoD meet by Skype conference
  • A meeting moderator has to be present for every meeting. The moderator is responsible for publishing the agenda well in advance, to moderate the meeting and to write a report of the results for the BeVolunteer wiki. The Secretariat Secretariat is in charge of making sure the meeting reports are filed correctly.

At least half of the BoD members should be present to take decisions. When less than half the BoD members are present, the meeting can still take place for discussing and brainstorming, but will not have a valid character.

  • The board meeting report on the wiki has to be approved by at least two board members (other than the moderator of the respective meeting) in order to be valid as a report of the meeting.
  • If the fixed moderator is not available for a certain meeting, a substitute moderator must be elected.
  • Identification takes place through skype nickname of the BW profile.

Decision making

  • The general assembly can make any decision and override any decision that has been made by any entity within BeVolunteer. Thus, the decisions of the general assembly are binding for everybody.
  • The Board of Directors (BoD) can take decisions on all matters pertaining to BeVolunteer as well as override any and all decisions made by any entity within BeVolunteer, except for the decisions made by the general assembly.
  • All decisions made in BeVolunteer by other entities than the general assembly or the Board of Directors (BoD) must be reported to the board and the general assembly. The decisions made by the board must be reported to the general assembly.

Official voice of BeVolunteer

  • Only the Board of Directors (BoD) and the general assembly have the power to define the official voice of BeVolunteer.
  • This voice must reflect the opinion of the majority of the members of BeVolunteer, as they express it in their parliament, be it the general assembly or the forum at the issue of a vote.
  • If the board comes to the conclusion that a vote done in the forum doesn't reflect the voice of the majority, or that the discussion which caused that vote was missing important information, it can cancel the vote. Should the board practice this right, it is then responsible for solving the underlying problem (i.e. calling members to vote, providing missing information, etc.) and restart the vote.
  • The official positions of BeVolunteer are published on the website of BeVolunteer.

Forum

This part refers to the forum of BeVolunteer, which can at present be found at http://www.bevolunteer.org/forum/

Role

  • The forum of BeVolunteer is the permanent parliament.
  • All members of BeVolunteer can discuss anything related to BeVolunteer or BeWelcome, with respect to their role.
  • The forum is a place of free discussion between members of BeVolunteer only. There is no censorship. This freedom is possible because only BeVolunteer members who are considered to know BeVolunteer well and are able to think about what is best for it can acess it.
  • Some specific sections of the forum are opened to volunteers of the projects of BeVolunteer, these not being BeVolunteer members.

Votes / Polls

  • As often as required, members of BeVolunteer will be called by the board or other entities (such as workgroups or team leaders) to express their voice through online votes. All the BeVolunteer active members can vote in working polls.
  • Working polls may be opened to persons not being BeVolunteer - such as BeWelcome volunteers.
  • Unless specifically stated, any poll on the forum of BeVolunteer is guiding only, and does not bind BeVolunteer on a specific course of action. Only polls specifically marked as official and binding, will in fact be official and binding for BeVolunteer.
  • In case of an official and binding poll, The BoD or any other entity that starts the poll should take the necessary steps to inform all volunteers about the existence of this poll.

External parts

Some areas of both the BeVolunteer wiki and forum are public or dedicated to teams whose members are not all BeVolunteer members. These external users have a limited access to BeVolunteer forum.

Confidentiality of information

Every member is obliged to keep all information about BeVolunteer and its members confidential, i.e. within the circle of BeVolunteer members. Divulging information can cause penalties defined by the Board of Directors. This does not extend to include information defined as publicly available. Public information about BeVolunteer is exactly the official information as defined by the board or the general assembly and published on the website of BeVolunteer.


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